Current Landscape of Healthcare
Reform Legislation
2009
(Last Updated: August 13, 2009)
Agenda
• ARRA Legislation
• House Healthcare Reform
Legislation
• Senate Healthcare Reform
Legislation
• State of Healthcare
Reform
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What’s Happening and Why
•
The federal government recognizes the problem
– Healthcare is inefficient
– Enactment of the American Recovery and
Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA)
– Federal government has established financial
incentives
– The Department of Health and Human
Services (HHS) is working to set standards for health IT
– Incentives to be linked to product certification and
demonstration of meaningful use
•
Purpose:
– Increase the use of health IT to transform the delivery of healthcare
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ARRA Legislation
• February 17, 2009, President Obama
enacted the ARRA
– Provided over $30 billion for health IT
– Established the Office of the National
Coordinator for Health IT
– Provided financial incentives to help drive
the adoption and use of health IT
– New privacy and security provisions
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Activity in Congress
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Overview of Current Healthcare
Reform Legislation
• Legislation calls for health insurance
exchanges to provide coverage for the
uninsured
– Aims to enable individuals to retain their current
plans
– Aims to create a marketplace for insurance
– Works to leverage health IT to reduce duplicative
spending and help with preventative medicine and
data collection to ensure the use of quality measures
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Overview of Current Healthcare
Reform Legislation
• Currently there are two leading
healthcare reform bills in the House and
Senate
• Awaiting the release of a 3rd bill in
September
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Affordable Health Choices Act of
2009, H.R. 3200
• Legislation would:
– Establish a public health insurance option and a
health insurance exchange
– Establish many provisions that aim to leverage
health IT to improve the efficiency of healthcare
• Health IT related provisions address such
issues as administrative simplification, testing
incentive models that reduce the growth of
healthcare spending and improve health
outcomes, and a new Bureau of Health
Information
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Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009,
H.R. 3200
• Introduced as legislation on July 14th in the House
• Referred to three committees: Energy and Commerce, Ways and
Means, and Education and Labor.
• Committees held mark-ups to add additional amendments to the
legislation.
• The mark-ups have been finalized and the bill was reported by
the committees on July 31st.
• Expected that a floor vote in the House will take place after the
August recess
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Affordable Health Choices Act, Senate
HELP Committee
• Senate HELP Committee’s Legislation, the
Affordable Health Choices Act, would:
– Establish state-based health insurance exchanges through
which individuals and small businesses could purchase
coverage
– Build upon health IT provisions included in the ARRA and
leverage health IT to improve healthcare delivery and
outcomes
• Provisions related to health IT surround such
issues as administrative simplification, a
national strategy for quality improvement, and
primary care training
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Affordable Health Choices Act,
Senate HELP Committee
• July 15, 2009, the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and
Pensions (HELP) Committee approved the Affordable
Health Choices Act
• The Committee aims to merge the legislation with
legislation to be released and marked-up by the Senate
Finance Committee
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Legislation, Senate Finance
Committee
• Legislation has yet to be released by
the Senate Finance Committee
• Through the release of the Senate
Finance Committee’s “Policy Options
for Healthcare Reform” this spring, we
gained insight on some of the policy
proposals that the Committee was
exploring in relation to health IT
(www.finance.senate.gov)
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Legislation, Senate Finance
Committee
• Chairman Max Baucus (D-MT) aims to conclude bi-partisan
talks concerning the developing legislation by September 15,
2009
• Following a mark-up of the legislation, the legislation is expected
to be merged with the Senate HELP Committee’s legislation and
be considered for a vote by the Senate
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What’s Next?
• Two Senate bills will likely be merged into one bill to compliment
its counterpart in the House (H.R. 3200)
• Congressional leaders hope to vote on healthcare reform
legislation this fall
• The chambers can send their perspective bills to the other
chamber for a vote or they can go straight to a Conference
Committee.
• Following passage by Congress, a bill would then be sent to the
President for his signature
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Healthcare Reform Summaries and Analyses:
http://www.himss.org/ASP/topics_healthcarereform.asp
Questions:
advocacy@himss.org